Those who think the political war on carbon will lower Earth’s temperature or keep climate stable need to study climate history.

Temperatures on Earth dance to a cyclic rhythm every hour, every day, every month, every season, every year, and to every beat of the sun-spot and glacial cycles.

The daily solar cycle causes continual changes in temperature for every spot on Earth. It produces the frosts at dawn, the mid-day heat and the cooling at sunset. It is regulated by rotation of the Earth.

Superimposed on the daily solar cycle is the monthly lunar cycle, driven by the orbit of the Moon around the Earth. These two cycles interact to produce variations in atmospheric pressure and tides, and currents in the oceans and the atmosphere. These are the daily weather makers.

The yearly seasonal cycle is caused as the tilted axis of Earth’s rotation affects the intensity of solar energy received by each hemisphere. This produces spring, summer, autumn and winter for every spot on Earth.

Then there is the 22 year sun-spot cycle, which correlates with cycles of floods and droughts. Sunspot cycles are indicators of solar activity which causes periods of global warming and cooling.

Original Research on Sunspots and Rainfall Cycles – Prof Will Alexander:

Earth’s climate is also disrupted periodically by the effects of changing winds, ocean hot spots and submarine volcanism that produce the El Nino Southern Oscillation.

The least recognised but most dangerous climate cycle is the glacial cycle. We are fortunate to live in the Holocene Epoch, the latest warm phase of the Pleistocene Ice Age. The climate history of the Holocene, and its predecessor the Eemian, are well documented in ice core logs and other records in the rocks. Each cycle consists of a glacial age of about 80,000 years followed by a warmer age of about 20,000 years, with the peak warming occurring over about 12,000 years. Our modern warm era commenced 12,000 years ago and peaked during the Medieval Warming, so it is probably nearing its end.

There have been eight warm eras separated by long glacial winters over the last 800,000 years of the Pleistocene. In every beat of this cycle, the vast ice sheets melt, sea levels rise dramatically, coral reefs and coastal settlements are drowned, and forests and animals re-colonise the higher land released from the ice. Warm climate animals such as hippos, water buffaloes and elephants got as far north as Germany in the last warm era. Then suddenly the ice returned, covering the northern hemisphere as far south as Chicago and London, destroying the forests, lowering the seas, stranding the relocated coral reefs and eliminating unprepared species. (Some dopey grizzly bears got stranded in the Arctic Ice and the most enterprising of them survived to evolve into white grizzlies now called polar bears.)

This regular repetition of natural climate change is partially explained by the Milankovitch cycles relating to changes in Earth’s precession, orbit and tilt. These drive variations in solar energy received by Earth and have the greatest temperature effect on the large land masses of the Northern Hemisphere.

On an even longer time scale, oscillation of the solar system through the plane of the Galaxy seems to trigger magnetic reversals and violent spasms of volcanism, crustal movements, glaciation and species extinction. Earth is never still for long.

These cycles interact to produce a wide range of ever-changing temperatures. Even at the same moment, temperatures vary dramatically from the equator to the poles and from the surface to the stratosphere. For would-be climate “managers” to claim they can calculate a mythical “global temperature” with precision greater than thermometers can measure is statistical nonsense.

It is a wonder of the modern era that people who cannot accurately forecast next weekend’s weather claim they can regulate the temperature of the whole globe by bashing industry and taxing carbon.

What is the role of carbon dioxide in climate? Al Gore did a great job to dramatise the recurring glacial cycles in his widely acclaimed work of science fiction. But he missed two inconvenient truths.

First, ice cores show that in the glacial spring-time the temperature rose BEFORE the CO2 levels rose. Therefore the rising CO2 cannot be a CAUSE of the warming – it is a RESULT of CO2 being expelled from the warming oceans.

Second, at the top of every summer-time in the glacial cycle, the high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere were unable to prevent the cooling into the next cycle of ice.

We are already in the autumn of the current glacial cycle and nothing man can do will change that. Global temperatures today are lower than they were in Roman and Medieval times. They will still fluctuate with the effects of daily, lunar, yearly and sun-spot cycles, but the long-term trend of maximum and minimum temperatures will continue drifting downwards. Once summer temperatures in places like Siberia are unable to melt last winter’s snow, the already growing glaciers will join to form ice sheets and Earth will once again be gripped by another long Glacial Winter.

The transition from Greenhouse Earth to Icehouse Earth always occurs suddenly. Once our verdant greenhouse is gone, life on Earth will never be the same again. Greenhouse Earth will surely come around again, but many of today’s species will probably not survive to welcome the return of the warmth.

The warm days, seasons, years and epochs have never been a deadly threat to life on Earth. Frost, snow, hail and ice are the killers. If our descendants do not have the energy, resources and wisdom to keep their people warm and fed through the coming glacial epoch, humans may follow our Neanderthal cousins who perished in the last glacial winter, just 20,000 years ago.

There is NO evidence in climate history that carbon dioxide has a detectable effect on global temperatures. However if our continued use of cheap reliable hydro-carbon energy does slightly delay the onset of the next glacial winter, we and all life on Earth should count ourselves extremely lucky.

Viv Forbes,

19 Jan 2016

Viv Forbes is a qualified geologist who has spent much of his life studying geological and climate history as written in the rocks. He has also studied physics, chemistry, hydrology, climatology, economics and financial analysis. He is the Founder of the Carbon Sense Coalition and a non-executive director of a small Australian company developing a coking coal mine.

Further Reading:

By far the best reference book I have read on the above subjects is:
“The Inconvenient Skeptic” by John Kehr. This book is written in plain language, but full of sound science, well researched and referenced. I highly recommend it for those wishing to understand what drives our climate. (Hint: It is NOT carbon Dioxide.)

Private long range weather forecaster, Ken Ring, uses the orbits of Sun and Moon, which combine to affect weather cycles. Ken Ring's Australia Weather Almanac for 2016 contains 450-pages of isobaric maps, rain tables, regional summaries, temperature trends and daily estimated weather conditions for all major cities and States. There are estimations of floods, frosts, hail, storms, snow and dust, and state summaries for year and season. Here is Ken’s comment on the state of weather forecasting today:http://www.predictweather.co.nz/ArticleShow.aspx?ID=257&type=home

The Australia Weather Almanac for 2016 is availablehere, and the 272-page Extreme Events Table Diaries fromhere

You want EVIDENCE??

The cat got out of the bag at Paris, when the Tuvalu Prime Minister Mr Sopoaga roundly criticised demands for him to provide robust scientific evidence to show Tuvalu was a victim of climate change.

Why should governments of any of the non-sinking islands of the Pacific or the Maldives present any facts when billions of dollars may be gifted to them for a non-existent problem?

Sea level records from the 1970s to the present, from the highly regarded Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level, show little or no sea level rise for either Tuvalu or Kiribati. Even the Government of New Zealand cannot fill its allocation of 75 places for “climate refugees”.

This reluctance to face scientific fact and observation is typical of climate alarmism, and reveals the entire Paris conference to be just another exercise in the redistribution of billions of dollars in what is a scientific fraud of massive proportions.

Geoff Derrick

Brisbane.

An Inconvenient Anniversary

Thanks to Albert Parker and Cliff Ollier for this timely reminder:

Not too many will remember, but 10 years ago Al Gore presented the alarmist movie "The Inconvenient Truth". After 10 years, the temperatures are pretty much the same, the sea levels are pretty much the same, the sea ices are pretty much the same, and the number of polar bears is pretty much the same (apart from the few who die by laughing while watching the movie) - it seems in terms of horse racing that the horse suggested by Al Gore is still sleeping on the starting line.

We lost another supporter recently. Ken Day from Darwin and Indonesia has been a friend and ally for 40 years and was on the advisory council for the Carbon Sense Coalition when it was founded. I miss him too.

“I feel like one who treads alone,

Some banquet hall deserted,

Whose lights are fled,

Whose garlands dead,

And all but he departed.”

However these good men have passed their batons to us, so we will carry on the fight.

Viv Forbes

“Carbon Sense” is an independent newsletter produced for the Carbon Sense Coalition, an Australian based organisation which opposes waste of resources, opposes pollution, and promotes the rational use of all energy resources including carbon energy.
Literary, financial or other contributions to help our cause are welcomed.
We get no government grants and unlike many of our opponents, we do not pose as a charity and in fact pay GST and income tax on our operations. We live on subscriptions alone.
For more information visit our web site at www.carbon-sense.com

Comments

While you are right in the respect that there has been much fluctuation in temperatures over the past hundreds of years, it seems as though scientists today believe that the global warming caused by carbon dioxide is mostly affecting the world's oceans. Water has an ability to absorb a lot of heat at one time. They believe that the oceans take most of the carbon dioxide and scientists are positive that the carbon dioxide content has dramatically increased over the years.

Yes the temperature of the Earth's surface may be heating up very slightly over the past centuries. However, global warming effects the ocean in far greater ways. The increase in the carbon that the ocean absorbs has caused the acidity to increase. This increase causes specimens that use calcium carbonate to have a harder time forming shells. This also effects any sea life that relies on them for food. Also the increasing heat causes the ocean levels to rise which could potentially drown coral reefs, which are home to a quarter of the ocean's creatures.

It is wrong to say that the ocean acidity is/has increased. The oceans are not acid. Do a little more research. Also see above. The oceans are not warming greatly. Coral reefs do not drown. IF the oceans were warming, the coral would rise up to the new sea level.

Sir Henry Fraser has an impressive CV.
Barbados' newest knight, retired university professor, Dr. Henry Fraser, received the Accolade of Knight of St. Andrew, in the 2014 Independence Day Hours. Sir Henry Fraser was named as a result of The Knighthood of St. Andrew being bestowed on him for his outstanding contribution to the medical profession and representation of Barbadian culture, especially in the area of its architectural history.Sir Henry, a medical practitioner by profession, has worked for many years as a lecturer in medicine at the University of the West Indies and now serves as an Independent Senator in the Barbados Parliament where he has gained an outstanding reputation for his work on the historic treasures of Barbados.

He has received a plethora of other awards, including the UWI’s Pelican Award, Paul Harris Fellow of Rotary International and the Gold Crown of Merit (GCM) in the Barbados Honours of 1992.